Remember back in February when the Bengals worked out Adam Jones? Much of us didn't like it. Jones left without a deal and the Bengals signed wide receiver Matt Jones. In late March, Adam Jones' agent Ray Savage included the Bengals among a group of teams that were interested. At the time, we simply thought that the Bengals were being named as a way to draw interest and demand from other teams.
On May 4, a report surfaced that the Bengals were working Jones out a second time. Later that day, a PFT post wrote that Jones would be signing with the Bengals. That agreement would come two days later and thus, on May 6, 2010, Adam Jones became a Cincinnati Bengal (a decision that was "hardly unanimous" with the organization).
Since then, Jones has remained in the background, hardly noticed at all, following through on his ambition to ditch "Pacman" altogether. And thus, no Pacman has shown up. In fact, he's received praises.
"He's come in and done everything we've asked him to do at this point," Cincinnati defensive backs coach Kevin Coyle said. "He's been very coachable. He wants to do well and is extremely competitive. He wants to win at everything. He's got that nature about him."
So maybe Pacman is dead and all that remains is Adam Jones. Could it really happen again that the Bengals give a player another chance and he follows through on it? I don't know if it will stick in this case.
However, having played his last regular season game on December 28, 2008, Jones is predictably rusty. And Chad Ochocinco took him to school.
"Chad killed me today," said Jones. "It was my first time playing press coverage in two years, so it was a tough first day. I was on the ground way too many times. But it's good to have a first day."
"I'm going to keep on killing him," said Ochocinco Thursday. "But he's real good. We're going to keep going at it. It's all about the competition and getting better."
Marvin Lewis chimed in on Jones' re-development.
"His transition will be to play snap-after-snap football and prove that he can do that in a competitive environment all of the time," said Lewis. "He needs to be a disciplined player play in and play out and execute the techniques and things we're asking him to do."
Regardless, the fact that mostly all of our Adam Jones posts have been limited and kept to the confines of history and the field, it's encouraging to see Jones matched up against one of the league's better wide receivers to get himself back into his old Tennessee Titans form -- on the field, of course. Because Pacman is dead.